It has been over a week since we played this game so I have been a little slack in posting it. We hadn’t a chance for some time to get together so most of the chit chat was just catching up on what each other was doing and how we were all going. So much so that I didn’t get an opportunity to take many photos. The French Indian wars has always been a favourite period of mine and I decided to treat Blake and Steve as guinea pigs with the Fistful of Lead rules. Like all good sets of rules they are easy to learn but have another layer of complexity which makes the a great tactical game as well.

The Horse and Musket set of rules with the FIW supplement below.

The game was an Indian raid on a small farm, but unbeknown to them a force of Rangers was staying with the farmer ov er night on their journey back to the local fort.

The force of FRangers.

The farmer, his wife, and two children.

The Indian force consisted of three groups of Indians each with a leader. The game was played without traits as I wanted to see how the game mechanics worked.

The farm on the road to Fort Disappointment.

Indian booty!

The Indians attacked across the open ground but the rangers couldn’t even find a barn let alone hit one.One ranger has a gun jammed (two bullet markers) while the other two are still loading. An Indian leader has crawled over the fence and is hiding amongst the pigs (green footprint).

Another Indian lead is crawling towards the farm house but has been shaken by musket fire from a ranger behind the supplies outside the cabin.

Meanwhile the farmer does what the rangers cannot do and opens up at an Indian in the woods and takes him out.

More Indians shaken, but at this stage three rangers were down and their leader was engaged by and Indian leader and another brave.

With the Indian force mostly intact and nothing to protect the civilians from the three Inian groups we decided to call it quits as it was still at least three more turns before reinforcements arrived.

The consensus was that we liked the unpredictability and tension created by the card activation system, the rules simplicity, and we could see the importance of choosing the right activation card at the right time. The traits would also add further tactical nuances to the game.

I loved it and we all thought it was worth more games to learn the system better.